In many criminal trials, defendants don’t put on an affirmative case. In other words, they don’t call their own witnesses or offer their own exhibits. But, in two recent federal district court ...
Judge Bruce Selya—a federal appellate judge who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit—is fond of writing that “nly rarely—and in extraordinarily compelling circumstances—will , from ...
In federal criminal cases, the government can’t offer so-called “propensity” evidence—evidence that tends to show that, because the defendant also did some unrelated bad thing, he must have committed the ...
When can a court treat the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission as the same “party” for purposes of a particular hearsay exception? This question was recently examined ...
In a white collar case, the government must typically prove that the defendant had a “criminal” state of mind (i.e., that the defendant knew that what he was doing was illegal). Consequently, a ...
